If You Want To Defeat The Donald, Stop Ganging Up On Him

Over the course of the 2016 election campaign, Trump seems to have morphed into the living breathing proof of Nietzsche's assertion that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Because despite the most recent outrage dubbed, "Pussy-gate", he is unaccountably still standing.

Jan Shure
Co-founder of SoSensational.co.uk, the shopping and style website for grown up women

MANDEL NGAN via Getty Images

He is obnoxious (and that's not libelous since not even Donald Trump could stand up in a court of law and defend himself against the charge of being obnoxious). He holds views which many would categorise as racist. He seems to have, er, rather outdated views about women, and he has profoundly unacceptable views about Muslims and Mexicans.

But if the Liberal elite in the US, and perhaps the chattering classes across the globe (though they/we matter less) don't stop ganging up on Donald Trump, he could win the US election.

I do realise he could win, anyway, but the whole appearance of "ganging up" by the Liberal elite just makes him seem more attractive rather than less attractive to the American electorate. Or at least, to the American electorate who do not live in Georgetown or New York City or in Boston or in downtown Chicago or in downtown San Francisco - which is, of course, the majority of the American electorate.

With his risible hair and orange-hued complexion, the millionaire property developer and star of the US version of The Apprentice, seems to have developed an unerring ability to turn every criticism and every allegation against him to his advantage. Over the course of the 2016 election campaign, he seems to have morphed into the living breathing proof of Nietzsche's assertion that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Because despite the most recent outrage dubbed, "Pussy-gate" (and if it wasn't, it should have been) he is unaccountably, still standing.

Part of the reason, I suspect is that his opponent is a woman. This is a gift for a man who consistently presents himself as a victim of a Liberal Left conspiracy; how lucky for him that his Democrat opponent is a woman. And especially lucky for him, a woman widely perceived to have climbed too far, thus playing into a toxic mix of snobbery and misogyny.

This, together with the perception of "ganging up" has allowed the wily Trump to further portray himself as the "average" white guy fighting the Liberal Left.

I do get that if you are an American with a soft-left sensibility who can see his or her revulsion at Trump reflected back in every news bulletin, or even if you are simply a sentient human-being, you will keep noticing that the bad stuff about Trump just keeps piling up. And you will want to have your say.

However, you should consider resisting the urge to have a go; the avalanche of "bad press" is just playing right into his hands....The "ganging up" tactic (which I know, by the way, is not actually a tactic but revulsion deep in your DNA) is not working. You are in danger of making Trump seem more and more like a victim to the American electorate and thus more electable rather than less... So, a new tactic is needed, and fast.

One tactic could be to be less clamorous; to call him out on specifics as we Brits signally failed to do over the wild and wildly inaccurate assertions made before the Brexit vote in June... ... And good luck with that!

If you fail be aware that if he succeeds Barack Obama in the White House, orange really will be the new black.